SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. Ho

Report by R. Kennard Davis In Caliban's Guide to Letters Mr. Hilaire Belloc, giving a specimen review of an imaginary poet, quotes" Great unaffected vampires and the moon" as among " lines which the Anglo-Saxon race will not readily let die." A prize of 15 was offered for a poem introducing this line.

This competition evoked a remarkable variety of poetic talent. On a first reading, I selected about a score of potential prize-winners, and the number of lines that I marked for quotation would almost fill a page. It became necessary to criticise with severity ; thus W. Bernard Wake and Miss N. L. Fellowes, who both sent otherwise excellent compositions, were eliminated for a false rhyme apiece.

The chief problem was, of course, what one competitor feelingly referred to as" that blood-sucking incubus of a word, 'unaffected'." There is a manifest incongruity about describing a bat as free from affectations ; accordingly, most competitors either exercised their ingenuity in devising circumstances by which these creatures should not be affected, or attempted to smuggle the epithet past the reader in a convoy of sonorous polysyllables. Several availed themselves of the new meaning which the word Vampire has acquired since Mr. Belloc wrote. There were many deliciously lurid nightmares, and much attractive nonsense.

Guy Innes began well :

"The bonfires of Beelzebub were burning, the furnaces of Hell were all aglow ; The cinder-imps full overtime were earning, the bellows were Leviathans a-blow ; The sinners on their spits were slowly turning, the stokers ladled out the lava-flow...."

So, in a different style, did M. R.:

"Eocene Leatherwing cast spells at noon, Spirited through time his radar mastery, Pictured his pristine world ; Let mammals fly ! '

Willed he, his concept of this aerial boon, Great unaffected vampires, and the Moon A just-cold silver fruit poised in dark sky Star-sprecked with worlds since snuffed. . . ."

Kenneth S. Kitchin contributed a sonnet which, after a rather salting opening, ended effectively :

"Memorials drip green in every town, Bronze tears of blood for those who die too soon ; We wear their memory as a thorny crown . . .

And, through the red night of this blinded noon, Our Furies grin sardonically down, Great unaffected vampires and the Moon."

Hilton Brown, who wins the first prize (0, professes to send the original sonnet from Mayhem's Tufts in an Orchard. This claim should, as they say, be treated with reserve. Judging from the lamentable specimens of Mr. Mayhem's work which Mr. Belloc quotes, I doubt whether, even under the stimulus of the " green wine," he could have produced so spirited a poem. The question posed in line ten should clearly be answered in the affirmative.

After considerable vacillation, I think the remainder of the prize- money should be shared equally by P. M., for a successful serious poem, Guy Kendall for an effective piece of fantasy, and W. R. S. R. (who is asked to send name and address) for a good bit of satire.

Among the many who deserve honourable mention are Admiral. Sir W. M. James, E. E. R. Kilner, Allan M. Laing, Rhoda Tuck Pook, D. L. L. Clarke, R. Howat, D. G. Macintyre, " Misk," Oswald Clark and Graeme Wilson.

FIRST PRIZE (HILTON BROWN)

I dined in Malabolge. On my right, Grey guttapercha devils shrank and swelled ; Far on my left,.I saw the Titans weld Planet to planet, sun to satellite ; Before me, half a hemisphere was bright With laughing salamanders ; I beheld Ancestral Adam, like an egg unshelled, Lost in ancestral Eden. . . . What a night !

Ah, the green wine that whistled in the cup !

Was I ? . . . or was I? Who am I to judge ?

Only I know that in a scarlet swoon, Looking not right, left, fore or aft but up, I saw against a sky of simple sludge Great unaffected vampires and the moon.

SECOND PRIZES (P. M.)

A hundred thousand men for twenty years Built Khufu's tomb by Gizeh of the Nile, They dragged the stone from Tura, mile on mile And sank exhausted under whips and spears. Beside the Pyramid the Sphinx uprears Her raddled countenance and secret smile ; The drifting sand about that monstrous pile Is dark with blood and sweat and salt with tears. Sometimes an eerie moaning passes through The desert night, and dies on rock and dune : "Have mercy an us, Lord of Lords, Khufu ! " —The shadow lifts, the air is bright as noon, And nothing now remembers, save these two Great unaffected vampires, and the moon.

(Guy KENDALL)

Like a resurgent nightmare from the screen We interstellars climbed from that machine (A queer black bolt cylindrical in shape) ; Before us, crag on crag and cape on cape, Appeared white peaks and caverns black with shade ; And blueish green things horribly displayed Their flowerless gourds, and through warm bubbling mud Pushed up like ghosts through Acherontian flood.

Against the sky were spread great leathery wings Of half-reptilian and repulsive things With blunt unmeaning faces and owl-eyes That seemed not to observe us anywise ; 'Twas all we saw in that untempered noon —Great unaffected vampires, and the moon !

(W. R. S. R.)

So this is the Contemporary Art

That experts tell me I should so admire.

The thing's all disproportioned for a start, And what's this creature lurking in the mire And plucking at that weird archaic lyre ?

Why have they called it "Solace to the Heart " ?

And what's this monster ? Can it be a Goon ?

Ogling with six (or is it seven ?) eyes Great unaffected vampires and the moon, Flimsily haloed by a cloud of flies, While fourteen kippers many times life-size Encircle what might be a mustard-spoon.

It stumps me, though I've spent the afternoon Gazing upon it with a wild surmise.